Mellitus was the first bishop of London in the Saxon period, the third Archbishop of Canterbury, and a member of the Gregorian mission sent to England to convert the Anglo-Saxons from their native paganism to Christianity. He arrived in 601 AD with a group of clergy sent to augment the mission, and was consecrated as Bishop of London in 604. Mellitus was the recipient of a famous letter from Pope Gregory I known as the Epistola ad Mellitum, preserved in a later work by the medieval chronicler Bede, which suggested the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons be undertaken gradually, integrating pagan rituals and customs. In 610, Mellitus returned to Italy to attend a council of bishops, and returned to England bearing papal letters to some of the missionaries.
Passion scenes from the St Augustine Gospels, possibly brought by Mellitus to England
Stone marking the site of Mellitus's grave in St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury
The bishop of London is the ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury. By custom the Bishop is also Dean of the Chapel Royal since 1723.
A certificate of ordination (with seal) given at Westminster by Richard Terrick, Bishop of London, 24 February 1770. The arms on the seal are blazoned: Per pale: 1. Gules, two swords in saltire points uppermost argent hilts and pommels or (for the office of the Bishop of London), and 2. ___ (the personal arms of Richard Terrick?), surmounted by a bishop's mitre above an escallop.
